ASU Doctoral Candidate Becomes Forensic Anthropologist for Medical Examiner's Office.

From her childhood, doctoral candidate Kristen Hartnett was fascinated with dinosaurs, early man, and the ancient Egyptians. She began her college education at Cornell University with a double major in Anthropology and Archaeology, studying the ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, and later focusing on Mayan archaeology. She excavated at an ancient Mayan site called Chan Chich in Belize, and discovered she loved field work.

Kristen decided to come to ASU after getting her Bachelor's at Cornell "because ASU has one of the best Bioarchaeology programs in the country," she says. During her last semester at Cornell, she took a Forensic Anthropology class and "it was definitely an 'aha!' moment for me. I knew I absolutely had to study this," she says.

At ASU, she combined both interests as she tailored classes and her Master's thesis towards Forensic Anthropology, but continued doing Archaeology and Bioarchaeology work in Phoenix and Belize. After getting her MA at ASU in 2002, she began work for her Ph.D. in the ASU Physical Anthropology program. She worked at an unpaid internship for five years with Dr. Laura Fulginiti, the Forensic Anthropologist for the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office and an adjunct professor at ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change (SHESC).

Kristen has both taught and served as a Teaching Assistant for numerous courses at ASU, including Introduction to Forensic Anthropology; Bones, Stones, and Human Evolution; and Human Osteology. She also worked as the director of Physical anthropology studies at the Tempe-based Rio Salado Archaeology.

In addition to numerous archaeological excavations, she has worked in disaster response for DMORT (Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team) and was deployed as a Forensic Anthropologist to the World Trade Center site in 2001 and to the Hurricane Katrina Disaster in New Orleans in 2005.

"Disaster work and interning for Dr. Fulginiti put my skills to use in a real world situation," says Kristen. "I enjoy forensic anthropology because I can apply my skills as an osteologist to both solving crimes and identifying unknown individuals. I am happy that I can use what I have learned in anthropology to help bring remains home to a family so that they can get closure, or figure out exactly what happened to a person so that a criminal can be brought to justice. It gives me a huge sense of accomplishment."

Kristen has received multiple fellowships and awards for her research at ASU, including the Graduate College Completion Fellowship, Spring 2007; Dean's Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Fall 2006; Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, 2005; Donald H. Morris Award for Outstanding Doctoral Student in Physical Anthropology at ASU, 2005; Dean's Advanced Scholarship at ASU, 2004-2006; Ellis R. Kerley Forensic Sciences Foundation Scholarship, 2004; GPSA Research Grant from the Graduate College, ASU, 2004; Forensic Sciences Foundation Acorn Grant, 2004; Research and Development Grant, Department of Anthropology, ASU, 2003.

"The graduate program at ASU has been very supportive of me and my research even though there is no formal Forensic Anthropology program," says Kristen. "I was able to work as a teaching assistant or research assistant most semesters that I have been with the program, so I earned valuable teaching and research experience while supporting myself at the same time."

She mentions several people at ASU who have been very helpful to her research and experience, including Dr. Diane Hawkey, Dr. Charles Merbs, Dr. Brenda Baker, and Dr. Robert Williams. "And I would have to say that Dr. Fulginiti has been the most influential person for me in this whole process of earning my Phd. We have spent a lot of time together in the laboratory, on crime scenes, doing research, and also on mass disaster deployments, such as for Hurricane Katrina."

Kristen will earn her PhD in May 2007. Her doctoral dissertation examines the current standards anthropologists use to estimate age at death in the adult skeleton from a joint in the hip and a joint in the rib. "In the long term, I hope to publish numerous articles about this research and make my new age estimation standards available to other anthropologists," she says. "I also hope to continue re-testing these age standards while working at my new position in New York City."

Kristen has accepted a position as Forensic Anthropologist for the New York City Chief Medical Examiner's Office.



Upper photo: Kristen Hartnett analyzing skeletal remains at the Maricopa County Forensic Science Center

Lower photo: Hartnett screening dirt at an archaeological excavation